For many, the goodwill from J.J. Abrams‘ mostly-very-good “Star Trek” reboot dissipated quickly with this summer’s sequel, “Star Trek Into Darkness.” What had been a shining example of how to give a franchise a fresh lick of paint became a film that had its moments, but failed to live up to expectations, with a lousy third act, excessive destruction and a waste of a potentially good villain. But it seems like Paramount have found a way to get us, at least, excited about a potential third installment.
When he took the “Star Wars” job a year ago, J.J. Abrams soon confirmed that he wouldn’t be returning to direct a third ‘Star Trek’ movie, which Paramount has been keen to move forward with sooner rather than later. Names like Rupert Wyatt and Jon M. Chu have been mentioned as potential directors, but according to Deadline, the frontrunner appears to be someone who Latino Review actually mentioned as being on a shortlist a little while ago: Joe Cornish, helmer of the excellent “Attack the Block.”
In the three years since that film landed, Cornish has flirted with projects—comic-book adaptation “Rust,“ which he’s since departed, and a version of Neal Stephenson‘s “Snow Crash“—without any moving forward, although he’s been kept busy with scripting work, alongside pal Edgar Wright, on “The Adventures Of Tintin” and 2015’s Marvel movie “Ant Man.” And while his name was linked to high-profile sequels like “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire“ and “A Good Day To Die Hard,” Cornish was initially reluctant to take on that kind of project, telling us back in 2012 that he turned down the ‘Die Hard’ movie because “Ultimately I think it would have been too big a step to take. Some directors do it. That guy Rupert Wyatt made a very low budget movie called “The Escapist,” and then he took on “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and did an amazing job. But he’s a braver man than me.”
But Cornish may be feeling more confident: while Deadline stress that it’s early days, Cornish certainly seems to be very much in the running for the ‘Star Trek’ job, which in itself would likely give him the kudos to get something like “Snow Crash” greenlit. And of course, it probably helps that old friend Simon Pegg is in the cast. With Paramount eying a summer 2014 start date (making this another addition to the 2015 clusterfuck), we’ll likely hear some firm news on this. Let’s just hope that Cornish gets to take a pass at the Kurtzman and Orci script this time around, so that it might make even a tiny lick of sense. Also, we dearly hope Cornish finds a place for this song, by his comedy partner Adam Buxton:
